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Mercury Concentrations In Snowy Plovers And Sediments Of Their Breeding Environments In The Southern Great Plains, Laura Duffie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Western snowy plovers (Charadrius nivosus) are philopatric shorebirds sporadically distributed during the breeding season at saline lake and alkali flat breeding environments of the Southern Great Plains (SGP) of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. The major conservation threat to interior snowy plovers breeding on the SGP derives from anthropogenic modification of breeding environments. The SGP is one of the most intensively cultivated regions in the world, and excessive groundwater mining and resulting deterioration of artesian spring flows reduces site quantity and quality critical for regional successful nesting. Most saline lakes now primarily receive freshwater inputs via irregular precipitation …